Monday, December 1, 2008

Benedict XVI: "Called to be hope"

"The word that sums up this particular state in which we await something that is supposed to manifest itself but which we also already have a glimpse and foretaste of, is 'hope.' Advent is the spiritual season of hope par excellence, and in this season the whole Church is called to be hope, for itself and for the world. The whole spiritual organism of the mystical body assumes, as it were, the 'color' of hope. The whole people of God begins the journey, drawn by this mystery: that our God is 'the God who comes' and who calls us to come to meet him. In what way? Above all in that universal form of hope and expectation that is prayer, which finds its eminent expression in the Psalms, human words by which God himself has placed and continually places the invocation of his coming on the lips and hearts of believers. Let us pause for a moment, then, on the two Psalms that we prayed a short while ago and that follow each other in the biblical text itself: 141 and 142, according to the Hebrew numbering."

For complete text of Pope Benedict's homily for the First Sunday of Advent, visit Zenit.

Liturgy the "apex"

Raccomandato

MCITL 10th Anniversary: The Catechism and Scriptures together in the Sunday homily

"The integration of elements of the Catechism of the Catholic Church with the readings from the Lectionary offers us an opportunity to demonstrate how the Word of God is able to animate our personal and communal life with Christ and, at the same time, articulate the Church’s faith that has been immeasurably enriched by the living tradition of twenty centuries."

-- Archbishop Donald Wuerl, intervention at the Synod of Bishops on the Word of God